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Learning about opposites can help elementary school students better understand the meanings of words. For example, understanding what it means to be happy can help them better understand what it is to be sad. Identifying natural pairs like right and left is a good place to start helping students recognize opposites in their everyday lives, but other lessons on opposites can focus on building vocabulary and on incorporating physical activity to reinforce concepts.

Arts and Crafts

Very young children, like in kindergarten and the first grade, will enjoy simple activities that emphasize basic concepts. Teachers can show children opposites like "happy" and "sad" by asking students to create these faces on paper plates or construction paper. Children will have fun creating their faces, but will also learn a basic opposite. Other crafts to teach opposites might include making traffic lights for "stop" and for "go," drawing pictures of the sky for "up" and the trees and grass for "down," or creating collages of summer for "hot" or the winter for "cold."

Alternative "Simon Says"

"Simon Says" is a simple game of directions that can teach children new vocabulary in a fun way. For younger students, up through third grade, teachers can call out simple instructions that emphasize opposites, such as "Simon Says walk right" followed by "Simon Says walk left" or "Simon Says look up" followed by "Simon Says look down." Older students in the fourth or fifth grade might enjoy an alternative version of the game, described by Scholastic, Inc., where teachers call out an instruction but students are expected to do the opposite. For example, when teachers say "Simon Says stand up," students should sit down.

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Match Game

Make the traditional match game a little more fun by getting students up and moving. Teachers should create a list of vocabulary words that are appropriate for the grade level and review them on the board. Teachers should then pass out worksheets asking students to identify the antonyms. The whole class can then practice their new vocabulary knowledge with an antonym match game. Teachers should pass out a word for each student, then students should be directed to find their antonym pair. Those who find their match the quickest will win.

Antonym Bingo

Once students have a firm grasp on antonyms, they can practice their knowledge with a fun game of antonym bingo, an activity suggested by Visual Thesaurus. Students should get a bingo card that has a single vocabulary word for each square. However, when the teacher calls out the words for the game, they won't be the words on the game boards, but will be their opposites. Therefore, if the teacher calls out "bad," the student who has "good" on the game board will mark it off.

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About the Author

Maria Magher has been working as a professional writer since 2001. She has worked as an ESL teacher, a freshman composition teacher and an education reporter, writing for regional newspapers and online publications. She has written about parenting for Pampers and other websites. She has a Master's degree in English and creative writing.